It seems that Blackphone 2 was officially announced, with a new OS - now called Silent OS, and they DO have Google Play Services. At least, at the moment, only the Digital Trends article is the only one mentioning that. I'm looking to see if there are other sources that can confirm that. If that's the case, then how forked could Silent OS be from regular Android and yet still be allowed to run Google Services?

Maybe it's part of the Android for Work deal they made with Google.

I also noticed that the specs for the phone sound awfully similar to those of the slider - but without the slider part.

I think thats what it is. They are uses Spaces as their own branding of managing Android for Work container tech which came from Googles acquisition of Divide, each Space will be in its own container. . The regular personal side will work as any other Android phone with GPS.

I've looked into this a bit - I think the company is being a bit naughty with their images - like Cyanogen - you the user can install GAPPS after buying it but every single video of the actual device in use I can find - its AOSP based and has only AOSP apps on it (Browser, camera etc), there are no GAPPS on there.

People should remember that OSs themselves don't get to be a part of OHA, OEMs do. Take cyanogenmod for example. when people install it themselves it comes without google play services because that is against terms of service and cannot be packaged inside the ROM (of course people can just sideload the play services).

When the One Plus One launched with cyanogenmod, the company behind the hardware had to become a member of the OHA and receive the licence. Also, one could say that samsung also "forked" Android because they added features that were not available in the base OS (the multi-window feature for example).

To be honest, if I had both of these devices... too me the bigger story would have been BB10 with GPS. If you want to hope that it might still be coming... no problem. It is a possibility, and from time to time I sometimes still hope that my PlayBook will get BB10.

People should remember that OSs themselves don't get to be a part of OHA, OEMs do. Take cyanogenmod for example. when people install it themselves it comes without google play services because that is against terms of service and cannot be packaged inside the ROM (of course people can just sideload the play services).

When the One Plus One launched with cyanogenmod, the company behind the hardware had to become a member of the OHA and receive the licence. Also, one could say that samsung also "forked" Android because they added features that were not available in the base OS (the multi-window feature for example).

That's not a fork in the way that google define it, you can modify the user layer in that way. Its also why the Oneplus 2 comes with google apps because it doesn't run Cyanogenmod but android 5.1 with their OxygenOS GUI.

That's not a fork in the way that google define it, you can modify the user layer in that way. Its also why the Oneplus 2 comes with google apps because it doesn't run Cyanogenmod but android 5.1 with their OxygenOS GUI.